Sunday, 26 January 2014

Tutorial: Fabric Love Hearts

With Valentine's Day coming up, I thought I would make a few quick and simple decorations for our home. Nothing big and fancy, just a few small things that we can keep or use for some other occasion. Fabric Love Hearts. They can easily be turned into a garland or gift tags, they can be hung on a tree as lovely ornaments or they can fill a basket or vase to the brim to brighten up your room. You can make just one large heart or as many as you like of smaller sizes.

Each heart is about 8cm x 6cm. I chose bright red with white polka dot and pale pink check fabrics for this project. I was not sure about combining reds and pinks but the more I worked on the hearts, the more this colour combination grew on me. So here we go.

Material:

piece of cardboard (depending on the size of your heart)

fabric of your choice (piece for my heart is about 13cm x 10cm)

embroidery thread in contrasting colour

soft fill stuffing

and of course sewing machine, scissors, needles, beads

Step 1: Draw a heart of a desired shape on a piece of cardboard. Cut it out and fold in half vertically.

Step 2: Fold the piece of fabric two times. Crosswise and lengthwise so you have four layers of fabric.

Step 3: Insert folded fabric into the folded cardboard heart with folded edges next to each other.

Step 4: Firmly hold the heart with your fingers and cut your fabric along the edge of the cardboard heart.

Step 5: You should have two hearts with wrong sides facing each other. Put the cut out hearts with the right sides facing each other. Mark a small opening on the straight side of the heart.

Step 6: Stitch around the edge with about 0.5cm allowance. Make sure to start and finish with a backstitch to secure the seam. Go slow along the rounded edges to get a nice curvy seam. Using small scissors, make tiny slits along the rounded edges. Cut off the pointy tip of the heart.

Step 7: Turn the heart the right side out. Using a chopstick, carefully push the seam out and iron gently.

Step 8: Fill the heart with soft fill. I like my hearts to be quite soft and a bit flat.

Step 9: Sew by hand the opening closed.

Step 10: Using a contrasting colour embroidery floss, stitch around the edge with running stitch. Make sure to leave a long end at the beginning of the stitching.

Step 11: Tie the ends in a bow or add a few beads. Done!

Did you notice the tiny hearts on the photo at the very top? Come back soon to see what I am going to do with them and what plans I have for the fabric hearts I have made. Have fun creating!